The Virgin of Juquila

I boarded my pre-dawn flight to Mexico and gratefully dropped into the aisle seat in Row 15. The woman seated next to me smiled politely and I smiled back but closed off any possibility for early morning chatter by picking up my book to begin reading. When the breakfast cart came, I chose the huevos rancheros and my neighbor took the last burrito. “Yours looks better than mine,” she said softly. She did not push, but I sensed she would have gladly entered into conversation if given the opportunity.

Once I finished eating, I felt inclined to be a little more social. When my neighbor asked, “Do you live in Miami?” I said I did and asked her if she lived in Mexico. She did. Her name was Juana. She was traveling with a family that had two children; she was their nanny.

Juana was the color of caramelized sugar, the skin of her round face so smooth and evenly colored I wanted to touch it. Her eyes were jet black under the stick-straight hair of indigenous people. She was pleasant to look at.

“Where do you live in Mexico?” I asked. She replied that she was from Cordoba de Veracruz, near a shrine to the Virgin who had run out of a burning cave, leaving the image of her charred face imprinted on a rock. “Do you have your own children?” I questioned as my interest in Juana grew. She said she did, two girls aged 21 and 16.

Then, she opened the floodgates, and shaking her head lightly, described how much suffering her oldest had caused her. She spoke very softly, without drama, but not without emotion. She shared that her daughter had become very promiscuous, was never home, and completely disregarded her mother’s supplications that she settle down, finish her studies, stay close to her family. I asked if there was a father, and Juana said he had left them, and that her daughter held her responsible for having failed to keep her father with them. Juana pressed her fist to her chest when she related this, but also asserted that she had firmly told her daughter that she had always been there for her, and always would be.

I listened. I could feel this mother’s pain, and marveled at how she was able, and willing, to articulate it to me, a stranger. She did not elicit pity from me; quite to the contrary, I found myself admiring her for the quiet certainty in her eyes, her patience with her daughter, and her ability to remain sure of her own worth. More surprising still was the feeling that Juana did not so much need to share her troubles with me, as I needed to hear them.

I thought about my Julie, and how lucky I was that she was a good girl, but I realized how easily children can dash the dreams we have for them. And even if they don’t, they grow away and become something you never bargained for. No parenting magazine prepares you for the disappointment of watching your children dash your hopes, or teaches you how to let theirs take hold.

I then surprised myself by sharing my own semi-sweet sadness. “I have a 16-year-old, too,” I heard myself say, unable to contain the tears welling in my eyes. “She is a wonderful child, but I never knew I would cease to be a central part of her world.” When did that terrible, natural process happen?

There it was, the gnawing heartache out in the open, before this stranger who listened and nodded appreciatively. I realized my hurt did not come close to the suffering this woman had endured with her promiscuous daughter, but my own pain was real. Julie, quite normally, was growing away from me, and I was still holding on to a little girl whose world once revolved around me, who defined me. I wondered how a mother can successfully navigate through that time when, for a while, we become irrelevant to our daughters, or worse, our values do.

And at that moment, the field was leveled. This indigenous Mexican single mother of two and I, a well-traveled, professional, single mother of one, were just that: mothers, at a loss over our daughters.

Juana then asked if I was Catholic, and I caught myself saying yes. I wanted to connect with this woman whose gentleness surely belied she had some answer. She explained that her daughter had just recently settled down with a good, hard-working man and now had a three-month-old baby girl to whom she was devoted. And this was all thanks to Juana’s prayers to the Virgen de Juquila, enshrined near her hometown. She had prayed and prayed to her, asking her to guide and protect her daughter because she could not manage the situation anymore. She had relinquished her attempts to save her daughter to the Virgin of Juquila. And the Virgin had answered.

I observed the serenity with which Juana spoke about the Virgin of Juquila, and envied her faith. I wished I could believe there was someone on my side who would make sure Julie would be alright. But I was not religious and did not believe in saints and miracles, as much as I would have liked to know the peace that Juana extracted from her firm belief in the Virgin of Juquila.

Then, without fuss or fanfare, Juana reached into her purse and pulled out a small image of a virgin with a charred face in a cheap, brassy-gold metal frame. “I can get another one,” she said plainly as she handed the relic to me. It was not an offer; she needed to give it and I needed to take it. “She can help you,” Juana said, but left it clear that whether the Virgin of Juquila helped me or not was entirely up to me. And I knew it was about focus, faith, and an unwavering belief that when you let it go, an answer comes.

As I took the little image of the Virgin of Juquila, I thought I had never received a more beautiful gift. My eyes filled again, and I felt that Juana knew something about the power of letting go, believing, and paying it forward. And because she did, the Virgin of Juquila had no doubt placed her in Seat 15 B.

Fireworks and Christmas Lights

In this Second Half, love looks nothing like what I thought it was supposed to look like throughout my First Half. If I thought it should be pink, it has shown up in blues and oranges and sea-greens. If I was certain it was round and smooth, I now know it can be amorphous, linear, with jagged edges or holes. There are no rules, there is no template. But there are two basic kinds of love. A friend recently put it beautifully when describing her own very long-term love relationship: there were never any fireworks, but there were Christmas lights.

Love that.

September 11, 2010

Ten years after September 11 forever became more than just a date on the calendar, I re-read something I wrote in 2000, when all the pain and bewilderment was still so raw. And I still want to say this to him, to the others.

To Osama bin Laden:

You have had a profound effect on humanity, Mr. bin Laden, and the world is very curious. It wants to know many things: Why? How? And mostly, how could you?

But I am curious about something else. I do not ask ‘why?’ because it is clear that your motives cannot be understood by those who value life above all else. I do not question ‘how?’ because understanding the logistics of your operation will not undo your acts. Besides, there are others in charge of researching this to attempt prevention of similar acts in the future. Nor do I ask ‘how could you?’ because what matters more is that you could, and did.

What I am curious about is the way you feel now. I ask, ‘did you achieve what you wanted?’ Your ultimate goal was not to destroy the World Trade Center and to kill innocent people, clearly. Your ultimate goal, I think, was to destroy the American spirit and all that America symbolizes, because it is contrary to your beliefs about life and living.

But, I ask you, do you truly believe that your acts can achieve that? Do you think that the freedom humanity has yearned and died for through the ages, will cease to have value because some are willing to use terror to stop it? You remind me of an angry, rejected lover, who attacks his beloved in an attempt to win her over. When has that ever worked? How can violence and aggression against infidels, unbelievers, make believers out of them? If you succeed in obliterating them from the Earth, surely you do not believe that you will have obliterated forever their beliefs, their way of life, their values.

So that is my question, Mr. bin Laden. Are you satisfied? Have you achieved your ultimate goal? Are you in good favor with your god? Because Mr. bin Laden, if all you wanted was to let the world know that you don’t agree, you managed rather well. But I think you probably wanted something more. I think you wanted very much to destroy something that today, is stronger than ever: the will to live free.

And so, in your ultimate quest, you have failed miserably.

It Happened to Me

I swore it would never happen, didn't you? I swore I would never let the bastards get me down. Never think music was played too loud. Never favor a night in with a good book over a late night out drinking and clubbing. I certainly was never going to let anyone or anything slow me down. And I swore I would always, always love the Stones.

I still love the Stones. But by the time you're into the Second Half, chances are the bastards did get you down more than once during your First Half. People were mean and it hurt; life was unfair and you got burned; love was glorious and then it sucked. There was no escaping it; you just used to think there was.

About music being played too loud(ly): sometimes it is just too bloody loud. You can't hear yourself think over a throbbing base but if you loved the Stones at full-blast back then, now you know there are some sweet acoustics and awesome harmony you only catch when you turn it down. Of course, that doesn't mean you don't still love to blare Brown Sugar through your sunroof when driving home from the beach.

The drinking and clubbing thing is overrated. I know, you swore you would never say that. But you thought it even in your young and foolish First Half; you would just never admit that curling up at home with a book that transports you could trump a night of too much vodka, noise and dancing when you didn't really feel like it in an over-crowded, overpriced club, only to be rewarded with a massive headache the next morning. Well, now you can. Gimme the book.

As for slowing down, I would say there's a temporary lull when the weight of adult responsibilities and the natural aging process do slow you down, dammit. But it is temporary. Because once you clear the core kid-raising, mortgage-paying, loan re-paying and job securing that is central to most mid-lives and their respective crises, and once you start practicing, say, yoga, you just know nothing can slow you down. Unless, of course, you let it.

In the Second Half, you get a second chance, but this time it's based on strength borne of lessons learned, not a youthful reverence for your own delusions of invincibility. You realize the bastards only get you down if you give them that power. There is music that you play real loud because you choose to, not because you're supposed to. If you occasionally put down that engrossing book to go boogie with friends in a club until 4:00 am (OK, maybe 1:00 am), it's fun, but nothing beats getting back to the book in your pj's with a coffee on Sunday morning. And best of all, in the Second Half you have a certain freedom that must be earned -- financial, emotional, spiritual -- and that allows you to go at the world with a renewed zest and confidence that no one and nothing can slow you down.

Yup, it happened to me. And thank god it did.

In Six Sentences (short fiction from The Second Half)

Her mind was a terrible bottomless sea with a strong undertow that slow-laughed at her futile struggles, easily winning an arm-wrestling match with barely an outbreak of sweat on the brow. She kicked and pulled with her best effort - throw him out throw him out throw him out! - but the current had her and wouldn't let go. Conspiring, neither would he; he was determined to stay, just because he could. Then, maybe it was time, maybe it was loss of interest, but quite suddenly it let her go. He floated out with the tide, and she washed up on the sand past the breakers, slimy and gritty with seaweed and broken shells, glancing back at the constant horizon. Empty.

The Non-Virtual

It's 9:30 on a Thursday night and Twitter is busy. I know this because I tried to sign in to my newly created account to see why I have two followers when I have neither posted, tweeted nor uploaded anything to my....thing. I mean, I'm flattered and all, but how can Twitter be busy? Are there that many people sitting in front of their screens -- or walking while looking at their screens, or doing whatever they can now do with their screens? My point is, if Twitter is busy, there must be a heap-load of humanity communing with an electronic device at this moment. Including me, but that's a fluke. I don't tweet; I only just started "friending" people and using that new verb; and this blog is my personal foray into social media.

Don't get me wrong; I am in the communications business and all media, social or otherwise, is my thing. But on my personal time, I really don't want to look at another friggin' screen. It's not that I don't like it, get it, or appreciate the possibilities of human connection that social media has revolutionized. I do. It's just that all those people currently tweeting are not looking at each other (see previous blog post, Michael Mahony). And I am still a very strong believer in the power of eye contact.

You're going to say it's an age thing, and maybe it is. In this Second Half, you suddenly discover the value of the impractical, the beautiful for beauty's sake, and the non-virtual. I recently attended a talk by the head of a college Literature department whose specialty is Victorian Narrative Poetry. I wanted to cry at the utterly useless and impossibly lovely subject that is his passion. I can blog and text with the best of them, but when I'm done, I want to practice ancient Chinese calligraphy because it's so pretty. And when I put the iPhone down (and I'd really like to have an iPad, too), I want to look at you. I want to see your eyes, watch you smile, laugh with you and hear your voice. Not virtually. Really.

Of course you can do both -- connect virtually and personally connect. But I think you have to work at it. On a recent reunion visit to Boston with family members, it was great to have information about our trip, flights and options at our iPhone fingertips, but sometimes, I was looking for the eye contact and found it engaged otherwise. If you put the thing down sometimes, you can experience the volumes spoken in the pauses, shared amusement, pained expressions and signs of joy, excitement and bewilderment that just don't come across quite the same way virtually.

If Twitter remains busy, I will really miss that.

Michael Mahony

Michael Mahony cannot see you. But he looks at you. Really looks at you.

Michael Mahony is going blind from macular degeneration. It’s a way to lose your sight, slowly. He still sees shapes and shadows, and goes about his business with familiar movements so that, not knowing about his condition, you would easily think he sees everything.

Actually, he does better than that. Because when you speak to Michael Mahony, he looks right into you. He focuses only on you, on what you are saying, and you have the sense that nothing could be more important to him at that moment than what you are communicating. He validates you.

It’s a gift, really. From Michael. He has a natural way of making you feel relevant, important, interesting, so you want to be around him. You get his attention because he thinks you deserve it, no matter who you are or what you are saying. I once read that to be universally interesting, you have to be universally interested. That's Michael Mahony.

When you are speaking to Michael, he is in the moment; he looks at you with his eyes that can’t see. But what he does see is who everyone wants to be: a whole person with a message worth hearing. Real simple. He gets that. You see?

Thank you, Michael.